From Marquette Today: 

"Dr. Kris Ropella enrolled in the biomedical engineering program at Marquette University in the early 1980s when there were few female engineers and biomedical engineering was considered unconventional. Ropella’s father always challenged her to push back against the status quo, so she was drawn to the tension of a changing engineering landscape.

The lessons she learned from her dad — to “allow thinking and looking differently to create a tension toward innovation” — make up a legacy that she carries out today.
“That’s the spirit I’ve embraced in my work my entire life. I don’t want my work to look like everyone else’s,” Ropella says. “I want to stand out not for attention, but because I want people to think differently about the way they do things. I like taking that risk and enjoy the challenge. I hope to inspire others to do the same.”

For nearly nine years, the Opus Dean of the Opus College of Engineering has led with that same courage and spirit. Today, with a new $5 million grant from the GHR Foundation, Ropella plans to boldly tackle existing disconnects between the engineering education pipeline, evolving industry and talent needs, and the traditional academic approach to engineering education."

Read more.

From The National Catholic Reporter:

"The goal for Catholic universities cannot be limited to improved programs, facilities and income, the pope said.

'A greater passion must animate the university, as evidenced in a shared search for truth, a greater horizon of meaning, lived out in a community of knowledge where the liberality of love is palpable,' Francis said.

St. Augustine, as the philosopher Hannah Arendt noted, "described love with the word 'appetitus,' understood as inclination, desire, striving," he wrote. "My advice to you, then, is this: Don't lose your 'appetitus.'"

'It is not enough to award academic degrees,' the pope said. 'It is necessary to awaken and cherish in each person the desire to "be." It is not enough to prepare students for competitive careers: It is necessary to help them discover fruitful vocations, to inspire pathways of authentic existence and to integrate the contribution of each individual within the creative dynamics of the larger community.'"

Read more. 

​GHR partnered with Risen Christ Catholic School to enhance the educational experience for its diverse student body. With support from GHR, the school has adopted a high-quality English Language Arts (ELA) and Spanish Language Arts (SLA) curriculum for its kindergarten through 5th grade students. They will also undergo a program evaluation to improve its dual language immersion model of instruction.
 
Risen Christ is the only Catholic dual-immersion school in Minnesota where curriculum instruction is provided in both English and Spanish across all academic subjects. Risen Christ students come predominantly from a Latinx background where Spanish is the first language for most students. As parents and students search for a high-quality education, they come to Risen Christ because they are drawn to the school’s dual immersion model; students become bilingual and biliterate in Spanish and English by the time they graduate in 8th grade thereby improving the educational outcomes for students.
 
Recently, the school sought a new, high-quality curriculum to align seamlessly with its dual immersion model and more importantly, support the current needs of students. After careful consideration, the Amplify CKLA and Caminos curricula were selected. The Amplify curricula meets expectations set by EdReports: an independent, nonprofit organization that helps educators identify high-quality instructional materials. More importantly, the adoption of Caminos, the Spanish counterpart to CKLA, ensures a cohesive and comprehensive approach to language arts education for students. Using one curriculum to teach both languages, rather than two different curricula, will help strengthen and compound students’ learning.
 
In the heart of this vibrant community, Risen Christ Catholic School is not merely embracing change; it is driving innovation in bilingual education. The school is collaborating with experts in the field of Dual Language Immersion to identify areas of improvement for their program. The program will be evaluated in the Fall of the 2024-25 school year. Once completed, Risen Christ will receive recommendations on how they can improve their dual immersion program. The school's commitment to providing an evolving and high-quality dual-language education ensures that students and families will continue to receive a high-quality education that can set them up for future success.
 

Ascension Catholic Academy is a consortium of four Catholic schools (currently St. Peter Claver, St. John Paul II, Ascension, and St. Pascal Regional) that center racial equity and unleash scholar potential in the Minneapolis and St. Paul metropolitan area.  
 
GHR partnered with the Academy to help two schools (Ascension and St. Peter Claver) meet state requirements to open childcare centers on their campuses. Beginning in September 2022, this funding expands ACA’s Early Childhood Learning Center (ECLC) initiative to all four schools in the Academy, ensuring that regular classrooms being converted over to ECLC spaces are up to code, equipped with the necessary furniture and learning materials, and are spaces families and scholars can be proud of and excited to learn in. 
 
Expanding the initiative provides families in the most underserved communities access to early childhood learning solutions. Close to 75% of kindergartners at ACA schools enter the classroom with no pre-k experience. Ensuring scholars are kindergarten ready is crucial to their holistic, long-term success. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on childcare programs, with many being forced to close permanently. The lack of affordable, high-quality ECLC programs has forced many parents and guardians to forgo returning to the workforce, risking their financial security. Opening two new childcare centers at these schools will offer families in the community much needed relief.  

Early childhood learning is an essential component of closing the education opportunity gap, a key aspect of GHR’s Local Domain strategy. Through this partnership, we anticipate improved academic outcomes for the ECLC scholars entering kindergarten, as well as stronger retention of families and scholars moving from pre-K to K-8 classrooms.  
 
GHR works to design new and replicable models for high-quality Catholic education. Learn more about this work here.

From FHI360: 

"As schools across the U.S. struggle to recover learning loss due to COVID-19, one school we work with is using a data-driven approach that is helping students make up lost ground.

For the past seven years, we have partnered with GHR Foundation to help a network of high-needs K-8 Catholic schools in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area strengthen their capacity to track, store, and use math and reading assessment data to inform instruction and assess gaps. These schools face many of the same pandemic-related learning challenges as public schools have.

Recently, we have focused on analyzing annual assessment data to help measure COVID-19 learning loss. We maintain online data dashboards and provide annual reports for each school to summarize data on overall student proficiency and growth. We look for signs of learning recovery across student groups by disaggregating data by subject/content area, grade level, gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, and by examining trends before and after the pandemic started.

We found that math proficiency at the network schools overall continued to decline since the pandemic began. However, at one school, St. Pascal Regional Catholic School, students demonstrated a remarkable recovery in math. While math scores at the school fell 12 percentage points between fall 2019 and fall 2020 – in line with the trends in math scores at other network schools – scores rose 15 percentage points in fall 2021, returning to pre-pandemic levels.

St. Pascal Regional’s principal, Inna Collier Paske, cites the school’s implementation of individualized learning plans (ILPs) for the improvement. Having started implementing ILPs the year prior to the pandemic, St Pascal Regional is unique amongst their peers in both implementation and intensity of their ILPs. For the past four years they have continually reviewed and revised their approach to reflect their needs and priorities, expanded ILPs to include additional subjects, and incorporated social emotional learning goals alongside academic ones. At strategic points throughout each year ILPs provide a snapshot of each student’s gaps and strengths that teachers can use to plan instruction and support that will help their students thrive.

We visited the school in 2023 to learn more about its approach. We conducted nine interviews with school administrators (2), teachers (4), and caregivers (3); observed the kindergarten, second, and fourth grade classrooms during math and literacy instruction; and participated in a guided tour of the school. Interviews were recorded and transcribed, and we reviewed transcripts and observational notes to identify generalizable themes from our visit. Collier Paske and GHR reviewed these themes for validation."

Read the full case study here. 

Implemented in schools serving predominantly under-resourced neighborhoods and families, City Connects helps teachers and schools provide integrated supports to address the in- and out-of-school needs of students and foster their strengths. Providing holistic support to students facing external obstacles to learning is a core aspect of GHR's Education strategy in Twin Cities Catholic schools and animates the Foundation’s long-term partnership with the program. A recent piece from the Boston Globe recognizes City Connects' inspiring founder: 

From the Boston Globe: 

"Her own humble beginnings, and the help she received along the way, drive Mary Walsh’s passion for giving every child a shot at a good education and a good life.

Operating out of the Mary E. Walsh Center for Thriving Children at BC, City Connects is now helping 50,000 kids in Massachusetts, eight other states, and Ireland, the country Mary Walsh’s parents left for a better life.

For all she’s done for poor children, Mary Walsh deserved a medal. On Monday, at BC’s commencement, she got one.

BC President William Leahy handed her the Bellarmine Award, named for an Italian cardinal who was a leading intellectual figure in the Counter-Reformation. St. Bellarmine was canonized in 1930.

Appropriate, because what Mary Walsh has done to help poor kids is the work of a saint.

She never forgot where she came from, or that everybody needs a little help sometimes."

Read more.

The GHR Fellows Program at the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business is a transformational undergraduate experience for students pursuing careers in business. The first cohort of GHR Fellows graduated in May 2023, stepping out into the world as principled leaders looking to create enduring value for society. 

From The University of St. Thomas Newsroom:

"Established by GHR Foundation, the GHR Fellows program reflects the spirit of former St. Thomas trustee Gerry Rauenhorst, who believed that entrepreneurial creativity inspires solutions that improve lives. Fellows are taught to be principled leaders capable of advancing the common good with a global mindset.

Amy Goldman, CEO and chair of GHR Foundation and vice chair for the University of St. Thomas Board of Trustees, was on hand for one of the first meetings of the inaugural cohort in 2019. The original purpose then – to further deepen the impact of St. Thomas through its graduates – remains as critical as ever.

'Our shared intention is to educate principled business leaders the world needs,” Goldman said. “As this first cohort prepares to embark on their careers beyond St. Thomas, each graduate will embody our intention as they live and work for the common good.'"

Read more. 

GHR partner, Twin Cities-based St. Jerome Catholic School, provides Pre-K to 8 education to over 200 students, preparing them for the academic, social, and spiritual opportunities and challenges they may face in today's world. With talented, supportive teachers and staff, and a keen eye for data and intentional planning, the school strives for consistent academic growth. In the past five years, the school has welcomed a large community of multi-lingual learners who are part of a Karen refugee community. Word has spread that the school is a safe, nurturing and excellent school home for many recent immigrants from Myanmar and Burma, where children will find their social and emotional needs met. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to virtual instruction, many students at St. Jerome missed significant amounts of instruction time. This has led to observable learning loss, particularly among the many emergent bilingual students still developing their expertise in academic English. In addressing the same, St. Jerome’s principal has identified middle school students as the target population to participate in a new educational model of direct instruction, small group interventions and homework assistance for the next three years in their learning journey. 

With support from GHR for this new model, the school is providing targeted instruction for core subjects, hired an additional English teacher, and hired an intervention specialist who will work directly with students and teachers to monitor student progress and implement changes. “With the small class sizes and a significant amount of 1:1 instruction that has been able to occur, we have seen students go from below to above grade level in their language usage scores. Also, students who are already highly achieving are getting above grade level instruction allowing them to stretch," said Teacher Emma McGlone.

Students are already showing signs of benefiting academically from these interventions – an uplifting sign for the future of this project. A middle school student shared, “We can work at our own pace and we get attention according to what we need, because the teachers know us really well.” 

GHR works to design new and replicable models for high-quality Catholic education. Learn more about this work here. 

The GHR Fellows Program at the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business aims to support and strengthen students as principled leaders capable of creating enduring value for society. The program is grounded in the shared values of GHR and the University of St. Thomas, of working in service to the common good.

The fellowship program is funded by a $50M grant to UST from the Foundation. Ten students are added each year as incoming freshmen to this highly competitive, transformational undergraduate experience for students pursuing careers in business. Fellows receive full-tuition scholarships to the University of St. Thomas and customized programming designed to deliver leadership experiences, including global exposure. The first cohort of GHR Fellows graduates in the spring of 2023.

​Made in partnership with UST, this video features interviews with a few of the GHR Fellows, as they reflect on their accomplishments so far, and consider the promise of what lies ahead.
​
As the GHR Foundation Board and staff came together in solidarity, community and celebration at the end of 2022, this video offered a reminder of how we have all lived deeply into creating enduring value in an ever-changing world around us, alongside our partners. 
 

From The Star Tribune: 

"For 73 years, St. Pascal school has operated in St. Paul — now the last remaining Catholic grade school on the East Side, where many used to send their graduates off to high school in crowded yellow buses or in cars with tape decks blasting.

Still, its enrollment has fallen, and there have been worries about St. Pascal's future.

But as of this month, the school has new life — thanks to a consortium of schools tailored to urban families in need. St. Pascal is joining Ascension Catholic Academy, a Minneapolis-based group that has provided centralized leadership and other supports to three other Twin Cities Catholic schools since 2016."

Read more.